IRL meets

I attended both the Great Falls Tweetup & the Electric City Blog Fest.

They were very different events with equally great people.

The tweetup was a very relaxed, informal eat & chat session. It was perfect for the crowd that showed and really made everyone want to do it again. I'm excited to see what comes next for the GF tweeters!

The blog fest was a more structured event in that Gregg had a discussion session first then BBQ after. I was only able to stay for the first discussion session since I had the grandcub and Karma had a vet appointment. It was a great discussion. Wulfgar was a great speaker and initiated some very thoughtful conversations. I meet several bloggers I had hoped to and just enjoyed the atmosphere.

Between the two meets I think I started to focus more on the "why" than the "what" I post. I don't post to really have discussions but I think the several different incarnations of my blogs have been a vent for my random thoughts. One of my first blogs was started after I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt. It helped me with the thoughts I had and trying to get them out so I could "deal" with everything.
Today I focus more on the happy parts of my life which is why this has a photo component to it.
I still try to help people to understand that not everyone who is diagnosed Bi-polar is unable to function in society in a "normal" way. I know that I will have to take my medication everyday for the rest of my life and I am fine with that. I also know what my ability to function is closely tied to my ability to force myself to leave the house everyday and go to my job.

When I awaken in the morning I take a minute to focus my thoughts on the positive parts of my life- my family, my health and my friends.

This post did not go as I had planned but I think it still conveys the thoughts I had to get out.

Next month is a fun geocaching event and *hopefully* the flickr meetup!

These are my tweeple!

On Saturday evening many of the local tweeters meet in real life at the Downtown Doghouse. We were treated to awesome food, beverages and conversation!
A BIG shout out to Dave the owner of the Doghouse! Thank you for opening your business to us and the community. You are an asset to Great Falls!

It was so nice to meet the faces behind the tweets! I can now put voices with those words.
I was impressed that we had more attendees than the Michael Jackson Memorial in Missoula and the St. Louis Tweetup combined!

I'm looking forward to the next Twitter event!

In the mean time - we have the Blogger event coming up on July 18th!